BPM

I am thinking that maybe my story beats are coming too close together. I'm writing the first scene at the Cult HQ and I can only write one or two paragraphs at a time. Then I have to take a break and think on the ideas for a while because the next one or two paragraphs are about some NEW idea.

A new story beat. Or a fraction of a beat. A bit, I've been thinking of calling it, but that's because part of the writing craft is thinking about what you are doing and how you are doing it and everyone who has written a couple of books is fully capable now of writing a whole book about writing.

Anyhow.

I'm not outlining, not at that level, but more and more I'm thinking if I tried it would fail. My "outline" version of the current scene is that Penny starts talking to Random Old Guy, and they sort of bond over the whole Artifacts of Power thing, and it isn't until she gets back to Godzilla that she gets told this was one of the founders of the cult.

Except the conversation didn't quite unfold that way. Characters that act like humans act have a way of finding the real, sensible, emotionally believable directions to go, and they aren't always what the writer wanted or what the writer foresaw. Writing a scene is a bit like wargaming out a coming battle; it seems all predictable on the surface but until you get down to the details you don't really see how all those small details act together to make things go differently than you might have liked.

So I'm sitting somewhere around 2/5 of the final novel length and it feels like getting the first fold down in a sheet, when you are still fighting the thing and it is still billowing all over the place but it is starting to make sense. Plus I'm pulling out of depression/health issues/I don't know and it really is a claw your way out of a hole time.

I have this weird feeling, though. That I am right on the edge of finding what hasn't been working for me and how to finally write at what I think is a decent pace.

I can't put a firm date on when I started the Japan book because, heck, there was a teaser as early as the previous book, meaning I had that much idea well before I hit the "publish" button. But I've been focused on this one since basically October so it is only four months I've been at it. Even if it feels a lot longer.

I was staring at a huge mass of data and wondering how I could possibly remember enough of the feel of Japan to make a believable book there. Remember my language lessons and figure out the history. And sure there's a lot of stuff I still feel critically weak on, but at this point I have digested enough to be able to do the plot.

It feels like is it finally moving at a good pace. Now if I could just not have to stop every two paragraphs.